The quarterback Tom Brady unexpectedly started in the New England Patriots’ preseason opener on Thursday, a day after he appeared in federal court over his suspension in connection with the deflation of footballs last season.

Brady is allowed preseason play, but if his suspension is not overturned or reduced, he will sit out the first four regular-season games. The Patriots lost to the Green Bay Packers.

Paula McLain’s new novel, “Circling the Sun,” enters The New York Times hardcover best-seller fiction list at No. 4. Her previous best seller was “The Paris Wife,” about Ernest Hemingway’s marriage to Hadley Richardson.

This time, Ms. McLain imagines the life of the aviator Beryl Markham, who flew solo across the Atlantic in 1936.

The 400 code talkers took part in every Marine assault in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945, sending thousands of messages from U.S. commanders on Japanese troop movements and battlefield tactics. Thirteen Navajos were killed in action.

The plan was the idea of Philip Johnston, a World War I veteran and engineer who grew up as the son of missionaries on a Navajo reservation and who learned the language as a child.

He correctly thought the linguistic and phonetic complexity would make it almost impossible to reproduce. The Japanese were flummoxed.